STLs of Surface Models

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
March 14, 2017
4 replies
6457 views

I commonly use 3D modeling to create surfaces and then export for fluid analysis in other software. The most common way to do this is to create a watertight surface and then export it in STL format. I can not figure out why, but it does not seem that Creo allows this. If I create a solid part, the STL option is available; if I create a surface though, it is not. Can someone tell me if there is any way to export a surface directly in STL format from Creo? If there is no direct method, is there a work around?

2D Drawing

S

StephenW

23-Emerald III

This just came up recently.

STL files - options?

M

MikeBrattoli

12-Amethyst

Stephen, to the best of my knowledge you have to have a solid model in Creo in order to export it as a STL file. Assuming your surfaces are merged together you can select the last merge in your model tree and Solidify your part. You will then see the STL export option.

Important note: The STL export will take all internal and external surfaces of a part when creating the STL. You don't have any options to select specific surfaces you want. For your scenario that shouldn't be a problem but something to be aware of

T

TomD.inPDX

17-Peridot

Take a look at other facet export types like WRL, OBJ, and a few others.

I personally like WRL (VRML) because it is open source and the output files are ASCII.

Easy to manipulate for next-level operations as well.

I output .WRL files from Creo analysis (core Creo lite version). Facets maintain their colors and are sorted in groups.

From the .WRL file, I can extract each color if that was desirable. This could also import each color as a new model.

It is a huge amount of work, but facet files can be very powerful for the right purpose.

There is, of course, the reverse engineering extension (REX) if your into spending money now and forever.

There are a lot of facet file manipulation software packages available. Some for free like Autodesk MeshMixer, and some for serious money like Rhyno.

These will help get you back to a surface model.

Just remember that facet models are as dumb as they get. They do not have circles or polylines. They have triangles and the triangles have attributes, and they can even have neighbor-sensitive attributes (softening) that you will never see in core Creo unless you understand what is going on in the background of your graphics display.

My need is to manipulate STL files to include single wall supports for 3D printing. In that sense, I am SOL with PTC unless they put some goodies in Creo 4 I haven't seen yet.